Hit These Links: Graduating? Good! Now: How to Find a Job

Happy graduation season! Here’s a little number that goes out to all the new grads this spring:

I manage the blog for the library at a local community college and recently posted this brief job search guide. One thing I advocate against is using job posting sites to just send out a bunch of résumés. Note: I’m speaking from experience here.

Fresh out of grad school, I applied to around 300 jobs over the course of a few months predominantly through responses to online job postings. Spoiler alert: I remained unemployed for that period and finally took a minimum wage position… a position that was eliminated a mere four months after I took it. Sigh.

I don’t want that to happen to our students. It’s a super depressing experience for the individual, not to mention bad for our local economy to have a bunch of unemployed folks hanging around – especially since certain local politicians are determined to punish those who struggle to support themselves and their families (as opposed to providing the basic guidance the unemployed may need to make use of their skills and thrive).

Full disclosure: I’ve never been a hiring manager or recruiter, but I’ve spoken with those who have been/are to get some of the information reported here. The rest is based on my own experience:

Most people try using a job search engine like Monster or CareerBuilder. These can be a great way to find what kind of jobs are available and where, but they’re not much good for actually getting you a job. For one thing, this is a common sight:

For another thing, even if you apply to 50 jobs for which you’re a perfect candidate, it’s entirely possible that no one will ever even look at your résumé.